Whom Hope, long Promiser, that seldom pays,

Cheats with post-obit bonds of distant praise."

With this clue, then, to the inmost thoughts of the author, one can understand why in his last work he wrote the following "Hint to Poets:"

"Brother bards-if dreams ye nourish,

Through new fancy or new truth,
'Mid the sons of fame to flourish,
Ye must lean on heart of youth.
Youth is eager, youth elastic,
'Plieth both to old and new;
Age deems all, but old, fantastic,
And doth novel gauds' eschew.
Youth, as yet of time unthrifty,
Poet's song will stay to hear;
Bent on business, grey-beard Fifty
To the charmer stops his ear.
Bring us back your wand'ring Homer,
Glorious pedlar, poem-pack'd:
Midas old shall greet the roamer

With a clause from Vagrants' Act.

Count not on your fresh creation;

Living Homer begg'd his bread:

"Twas a second generation

Twin'd its wreath for Homer-dead."

Mr. Kenyon's second volume, that appeared in 1838, five years after the first edition of "The Rhymed Plea," &c. and one year before the second edition, is under the modest title of "Poems, for the most part occasional.' Like its precursor, a portion of it is devoted to a satire in ridicule of "Pretence," where the author has left the high tone he had assumed originally, in imitation of Juvenal, and taken rather Horace for his model.

Thus, then, has Mr. Kenyon been exhibited in the triple character of a philanthropist, philosopher, and poet; while they, who have rarely met with a fervent apostle of charity, not so much in money as in mind, and are desirous of seeing the portrait of one, drawn in colours at once beautiful and true, must turn to the second part of the "Rhymed Plea," from which every minister of every creed will learn more in a few nervous and spirit-stirring lines, than volumes, no matter how large and learned, can teach; and so it is hoped the reader of the following extract will confess :

"If crime she find, let Law just vengeance take:
But crime of creed she doth not find, but make.
Like Esop's wolf, who mark'd the lamb for prey,
Herself the guilt invents, then turns to slay.
But He, each inner motive wise to scan,
Shall look with kindlier glance on erring man ;
And, though the lictor smite, refrain his rod,
For tolerance, earth-rejected, dwells with God.
Pilots of good! who guide o'er farthest seas
Untired, our Bible-laden argosies,

To where, by populous Ganges, weed-like thrown,
The poor dejected Pariah pines alone;

Or where, 'mid Polynesia's seas of blue,

Some island seer proclaims his stern taboo;

GENT. MAG. VOL. CCII,

Tt

For these with generous haste unload your freight,-
Our faith, our morals, all except our hate.
By Indian streams, beneath Australian skies,
Countless as stars, ere long, our fanes shall rise;
And white-rob'd Hopes each altar beam above,
But lay their first foundations deep in love.
So shall your task be hailed indeed divine,

And Heber's gentlest spirit bless each shrine."

If these be not verses of the highest order, both as regards the sentiments and language, but are merely rhymes, as the author's modesty called them, it would be difficult to say to what other lines the greater title can be fairly assigned.

It remains, then, only to speak of Mr. Kenyon as one of those who, as Horace says, are fruges consumere nati. After leaving the University, he gave his evenings up to London society of the more intellectual kind; and during his rambles through the country became acquainted with that wondrous talker, Coleridge, who, as the writer of this can testify, when he met him at a small dinner-party-for Mr. Kenyon's theory and general practice was, that the number on such occasions should not be less than the Graces nor more than the Muses-began to open his mouth at five p.m. and never closed it till the clock struck twelve, and, scarcely allowing himself time to eat a morsel of food, or to swallow a glass of wine, he exemplified to the letter the line of Horace, descriptive of a river, that—

"Labitur, et labetur in omne volubilis ævum:"

"That flows, and as it flows, for ever will flow on."

And having thus entered the circle of the so-called "Lake-Poets," Mr. Kenyon became the friend of Southey and Wordsworth, the former better known in his best days for the marvellous quantity of works he wrote in exquisite prose; and the latter for a peculiar kind of poetry, that, like olives, is enjoyed with as much relish by some as it is rejected by others. His mornings, however, were generally devoted to reading, the fruits of which are to be seen in all he has written; and as he was never known to be an idle man, he exemplified what Richard Heber, the celebrated book-collector, used to say, that it is astonishing what a man can get through, if he will only read three hours a-day,-from nine to twelve in the morning,—those hours so sadly squandered by persons not economists of time. After the close of the war in 1815, during which England was completely shut out from the Continent, except during the short-lived period of the peace of Amiens, Mr. Kenyon seized the opportunity of travelling abroad, where he feasted the eyes both of body and mind with whatever Italy could furnish to shew that giants once lived in lands now inhabited by only a race of pigmies. On his return to England, he led for some time a life of retirement, during which he probably wrote the greater portion of his first work, and some of the smaller pieces, especially-the lines on his dog, Cartouche, which was a very remarkable one, if the writer's memory does not deceive him,-of trifling events that occurred upwards of forty years ago; and on coming into society again, he married a Miss Caroline Curteis, whom he addresses as "Nea" in the "Verses written in a Churchyard,"—and after living some twelve years in all the unalloyed happiness of a mutual love and a congeniality of sentiments,—for she, too, either had herself, or caught from her husband, the fever of poetry, a few proofs of which are to be found in the poems indicated by Caroline K.,-he had the misfortune to lose her; and feeling that he could never

find her equal, nor be contented with less, he remained a widower, and endeavoured to enliven his otherwise solitary home by a circle of friends, fond, like himself, of literature, and drawn from various countries on each side of the Atlantic; and thus as he grew in years, he recalled to his own memory, and that of his University contemporaries, the intellectual hours passed in his rooms at Peterhouse, where young men were asked to meet at five p.m. to dine and to stay till midnight, enjoying the canas noctes, que Deum of his favourite Horace, and unconsciously imitating in early years the grey-haired Symposiats of Plutarch and the Deipnosophists of Athenæus.

Of his sufferings during the two or three months that preceded his death the writer knows nothing, and can therefore tell nothing; but he well remembers, that the last time he saw Mr. Kenyon, so completely were his spirits broken down by a lingering and painful malady, that he confessed he no longer felt the wish to live. And as his whole life had been a continued career of kindness towards his less fortunate fellow-creatures, and he could truly say that he had written

"No line, that dying, he would wish to blot,”

it is not too much to suppose that he saw in death not a foe to man, but his last and best friend, as it relieved him at once, and for ever, from bodily pain, and the scarcely less mental anguish of witnessing the sufferings of others that he had not the power to relieve, when they were of that kind that money could not reach.

He was buried in Lewisham Churchyard, in the vault belonging to his wife's family, and hence there is probably no intention of perpetuating the epitaph he wrote upon himself:

"Riches I had-they faded from my view,

And troops of friends, but some deceiv'd me too;

And Fame, it came and went-a very breath,

While Faith stood firm, and sooth'd the hour of death."

VANDALISM IN FRANCE.

MONSIEUR DE CAUMONT, who, for the long, the steady, and the dauntless course he has taken in the wide field of archæology in France, is so wellknown and esteemed, has recently brought forward, in a bold and effective manner, one of the greatest outrages ever offered to the feelings of the educated classes, not only of France, but of the civilized world. The barefaced hardihood with which it is being perpetrated is the more scandalous, because, at a time when France is taking credit to herself for a conservative disposition towards her ancient national monuments, the outrage complained of is being perpetrated under the sanction of the Government, as represented by the Minister of Public Instruction.

A few months since, M. Leo Drouyn, one of the most active members of the Société Française d'Archéologie, visited the town of Dax, in the Départment des Landes. He was surprised to find the walls of the town, in their entirety, of Roman architecture; and, in spite of some few reparations and Bulletin Monumental, 22*. vol. Nos, 3 et 6.

whitewashings effected in the worst possible taste by military engineers, in most excellent preservation. From the illustrated description by M. De Caumont, we can perfectly understand their importance to the architectural antiquary, and fully agree with that gentleman in pronouncing them to be the most complete Roman mural fortification in France, possibly in Europe. Certainly, in England we have nothing remaining so perfect: the walls of Pevensey may be best compared with it; but those, though grand and imposing, have lost at least one-third of their original extent.

The castrum, in form a polygon, approaching somewhat to a square, is about 440 yards from north to south, by about 330 yards from east to west. A foss, forty yards wide, encompasses it on every side, except on the northwest, where it is protected by the Adour, one of the prettiest rivers of the west of France. In this angle is situate the castle, a building of the fourteenth century, and divided from the town by a wide moat. The walls of the castrum are faced with small square stones, divided, every six or seven layers, with bonding courses of tiles. The walls are flanked with semicircular towers, of which there are at least forty. The internal construction of some of these towers is peculiar, and particularly interesting. They are solid at the base, but at a certain height they become concave; and one, of which M. De Caumont gives a drawing, is furnished with an opening outwards. The upper part is so covered with brushwood that M. De Caumont could not correctly ascertain the character of a cornice which appeared to crown the top. Two of the chief gates have been lately destroyed; and it would seem that no record has been kept of them, so thoroughly has Dax been overlooked by the antiquaries of France, and probably by those of other countries. One gate has been preserved by being walled up: it is of a single arch, constructed with stones of large dimensions. Another closely resembles those of the castrum of Jublains, in Mayenne, first brought into publicity by M. De Caumont, and engraved also by Mr. Roach Smith, in the third volume of his Collectanea Antiqua.

Such was the condition of the Roman walls of Dax a few months since: but unhappily, contemporaneously with their discovery, as it may be justly called, and pari passu, their destruction commenced. Dax is a little town of the sixth or seventh class, with a population of about 6,000 inhabitants. Some of the more influential tradesmen, with a view to private benefit, moved the town-council-at the head of which is a member of the Committee of Arts and Monuments-to vote, under the pretext of improvement, the demolition of the walls. M. Drouyn hoped that such an unheard-of act of vandalism would be repudiated by the Committee of Arts and Monuments, and by the Government; and he lost no time in entering his protest against it. The reply of the Minister of the Interior (M. Mérimée) shews with what little effect. He receives a certain report from the Prefect des Landes, based on the assurance of some architect of the place, (probably in the pay of the town-council,) which, he stated, sanctioned his countenancing the destruction of the walls, because they had been almost entirely reconstructed in the middle ages and in modern times! And so, for the selfish objects of a few ignorant traders, one of the ancient glories of France is to be swept away! The traders are encouraged to proceed.

M. De Caumont, however, has sounded the alarm throughout the country in strong language, and in a tone of manly and energetic indignation. He produces plans and drawings of the walls, and describes them from his own personal survey, exposing alike the gross ignorance of the architect who has mistaken architecture purely Roman for mediæval, and the easy man

ner in which the Minister of the Interior allows himself to be duped, and finds excuses to sanction the scheme of a few intriguing individuals to enrich themselves at the public expense, and at the loss of all lovers of their country and its monuments.

In recording our warm approbation of M. De Caumont's courageous and effective exposure of this crowning act of vandalism, we feel assured we speak the sentiments of the antiquaries of Great Britain, and of all educated and right-minded men; and if we can do no more, we promise to make the exposure as complete in this country as he has made it in France.

MICHAEL ANGELOa.

MICHAEL ANGELO fully realizes the ideal of a true artist: poet, painter, sculpture, architect-great in each, we hesitate in pronouncing in which his greatest excellence was displayed. Had he confined the exercise of his genius to any single art, he would have reaped renown and the admiration of all posterity. If we read his sonnets, the lofty purity of his soul, the striving after the good and the true, are manifest in every line. The perfectibility of human nature was to him no impossible dream, but an aim that throughout his long life he sought to realize, and, aided by the exercise of his transcendant genius, exercised through the teaching capabilities of art. Law and conscience were his agents in the great work he assigned to himself; by these he was himself guided and restrained, and by and through these he sought to recall his countrymen from the deep moral degradation into which he saw they had sunk.

To fully comprehend the nature and character of this noble man and true artist, we must recur to his birth and parentage, and examine the influences that conspired to build up his character. Both as a man and an artist, he is a most exalted model and worthy example, whose influence, not confined to the age in which he lived, will be felt for all time, or so long, at least, as duty and virtue are ranked among the qualities that serve to bind the elements of society together. At no more fitting time than the present could the study of the life of this man be more profitable to art.

At the time of the appearance of Michael Angelo, Italian society was in a state of most chaotic disorder; it needed a preacher of law and of conscience, it found one in Michael Angelo. Let us see why he above all others was best fitted for the task.

Arezzo was an old Etruscan city, fallen from its high republican state, inhabited by a choleric race; it was a city of judges, from which all other cities borrowed their podestas. Born in the city, Michael Angelo had a judge for his father. He descended from the Counts of Canossa, relations of the Emperors, who founded, against the Popes, the School of Roman Law at Bologna. With marvellous and instinctive prescience, his parents bestowed upon him at his birth the name of the angel of justice, Michael, as the father of Raphael gave to his son the name of the angel of mercy.

"The Life of Michael Angelo Buonarotti; with Translations of many of his Poems and Letters. Also Memoirs of Savonarola, Raphael, and Vittoria Colonna. By John S. Harford, Esq., D.C.L., F.R.S.,” &c. (London: Longman & Co. 2 vols.)